Natural disasters, such as earthquakes, hurricanes, and floods, dramatically illustrate how the forces of nature can easily destroy buildings of common construction. In the past, efforts to improve the structural integrity of buildings have included the use of steel bars to reinforce concrete and floating foundations for structures located in earthquake prone areas. It is also common to reinforce residential housing by employing additional structural support beams and piecemeal ties in construction plans.
The above-note construction techniques, however, not only significantly increase construction costs, but many also require alternation of the basic design or layout. For example, steel reinforced concrete can be quite expensive and utilization of additional beams and ties for residential buildings is not only costly, but brings to issue cost effectiveness. Other techniques such as floating foundations, often employed in earthquake prone areas, are expensive and raise significant questions of sufficiency and efficiency.
It would thus be desirable to provide for a cost-effective way to reinforce buildings or other structures or devices without being required to alter substantially existing construction or manufacturing design.